UNCAPPED Surrey seamer Tom Curran has been added to England’s Ashes squad after Steven Finn was ruled out of the tour.
Finn, himself a late replacement for the absent Ben Stokes, has been diagnosed with torn cartilage in his left knee and will head back to England for a possible operation.
Curran, 22, is next in line and the England and Wales Cricket Board has announced he will fly to Australia today.
Curran has long been considered a rising star of the county game and made his first steps into international cricket this summer, appearing in three T20s and a one-day international against the West Indies.
He took 24 wickets in Division One of the Specsavers County Championship at 34.66 as well as averaging a handy 27.44 with the bat. Liam Plunkett, a mainstay of the white ball set-up but not seen in the Test arena since winning the last of his 13 caps in 2014, and Mark Wood, set to travel Down Under with the Lions as he battles back from a heel injury, were other viable options.
Curran will link up with the side in Adelaide, where Joe Root’s side are facing a Cricket Australia XI from today.
Moeen Ali will play no part in that as he recovers from a minor side injury and the all-rounder trained alone on the eve of the day-night match against CA. He remains on course to be fit in time for the opening Test in Brisbane.
As for Finn, though, a brief England and Wales Cricket Board statement read: “(He) will miss the remainder of (the) tour of Australia after scans revealed that he has a torn left knee cartilage.
“The Middlesex seamer sustained the injury during practice last week in Perth and will now return to the UK in the next 48 hours where he will meet a knee specialist to ascertain whether he will have an operation.”
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